LEAD (pronounced iced)  , a city of Lawrence county, South Dakota, U.S.A., situated in the Black Hills, at an altitude of about 5300 ft., 3m . S.W. of Deadwood . Pop . (189o) 2581, (1900) 621o, of whom 2145 were foreign-born, (1905) 8217, (1910) 8392 . In 19o5 it was second in population among the cities of the state . It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-Western, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways . Lead has a hospital, the Hearst Free Library and the Hearst Free Kindergarten, and is the see of a Roman Catholic bishopric . It is the centre of the mining interests of the Black Hills, and the Homestake Gold Mine here contains perhaps the largest and most easily worked mass of low-grade ore and one of the largest mining plants (r000 stamps) in the world; it has also three cyanide mills . From 1878 to 1906 the value of the gold taken from this mine amounted to about $58,000,000, and the net value of the product of 1906 alone was approximately $5,313,516 . For two months in the spring of 1907 the mine was rendered idle by a fire (March 25), which was so severe that it was necessary to flood the entire mine . Mining tools and gold jewelry are manufactured . The first settlement was made here by mining prospectors in July 1876 .

Lead was chartered as a city in 1890 and became a city of the first class in 1904 .